MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.

4/22 Bradley is back; Samardzija soon

Milton Bradley was back in the Cubs’ lineup Wednesday night for the first time since April 12. He’s batting fourth. No word on his appeal of a two-game suspension.

Also, Jeff Samardzija will be called up from Triple-A Iowa and join the Cubs on Thursday. The corresponding roster move won’t be announced until Thursday, but look for Luis Vizcaino to be gone. Cubs GM Jim Hendry said Neal Cotts is staying in the pen and Sean Marshall is staying in the rotation. Lou Piniella said he’ll use Samardzija as a bridge to Carlos Marmol and Kevin Gregg.

— Carrie Muskat

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4 Comments

Vizcaino?? are you kidding me?? give the guy a chance, he hasn’t allowed a run in the 3+ innings he has pitched. Cotts should be demoted, he can’t pitch a complete inning because he just enters to walk people, he hasn’t a bigger ERA because every time he leaves there comes Marmol or Heilman to the rescue. Why would you want a lefty in the bullpen if he can’t pitch? Just because he is lefty he wont get the outs automatically and just because someone is a righty it doesn’t mean he can’t get the job done. Calling up Samardzija for Cotts would be IMO the best move.

Mexicancub, you’ve got to remember who’s running the show-Jim Hendry, he’s the one that jettisonned Michael Weurtz and Scott Eyre, check out their current ERA’s (I think
0.00). putting the team in this situation. Of course kicking out Vizcaino AT THIS POINT IN THE SEASON doesn’t make sense, but again did signing an injury-prone, somewhat defensive liability, AMERICAN LEAGUE DH player (Bradley) make sense? NO! Man, I can go on and on with all the dealings that Hendry made during his tenure, it drives me nuts. If spent 35 million of my employer’s money on a bad
purchase…I’d be fired. What’s the Cubs owners (whoever they are) thinking? “Gee, 35 million on a DH or giving Haufpaur a chance for um…500,000.00…Jim, YOU’RE FIRED!)

Until the new owners decide to take this team in the same direction as the Marlins, winning through development instead of rash free agent signings and suspect trades, we Cubs’ fans are going to have to put up with the Bradleys,
Jones, Edmonds, so on and so forth. Not to mention the
trading of good players (i.e. DeRosa). It’s as if Hendry has a plan to create a bad situation just so he can have something to do by trying to get out of it making it appear he is a good GM. A lot of his moves fly under the radar of most fans, but not us attentive fans. New owners, please
hire a more competant GM. Please.

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